Vibe coding
Also called vibe-coded, vibe code
Building software by describing what you want to an AI and accepting the code it writes, often without reading or understanding the code.
The AI researcher Andrej Karpathy coined the phrase for a way of programming where you "fully give in to the vibes" and "forget that the code even exists". You say what you want, run what comes back, paste in any error message, and repeat. Collins Dictionary made it their word of the year.
It has opened software to people who never learned to code: a shop owner's booking page, a family budget tracker, a game for a child's birthday. For things only you will use, that's a real gift.
The trouble starts when vibe-coded apps go public. Code nobody has read can expose passwords, payment keys or customer records. GitGuardian found that public code co-written by one popular AI tool, Claude Code, leaked secrets at about twice the usual rate.
For example
A teacher with no coding background describes a quiz app for their class, and has a working web page by lunchtime.
Put it to use
Where you'll meet vibe coding in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, how to use it there, and the mix-up most people make.
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